Biathlon at the 2018 Winter Olympics

The program for the biathlon events was exactly the same as at Sochi in 2014, with five events each for men and women and a mixed relay. The Olympic competitions were not counted for the World Cup series. All the events took place at the Alpensia Biathlon Centre in the Mountain Cluster near PyeongChang, and they all took place in the evening under a lighted course. As has been common in recent years, the longest individual events, the traditional 20 km for men and 15 km for women, were held by adding 1-minute penalties for missed targets, while the penalty in all the other events was skiing an additional 150-metre penalty loop for each missed shot.

Norwegian star Ole Einar Bjørndalen, who came into PyeongChang as the most decorated Winter Olympian ever with 13 medals, did not qualify for his seventh Winter Olympics, but served as a part of the service team for Belarus, as his wife Darya Domracheva participated. She surprisingly won the gold medal with the women’s relay team and a silver medal in the individual mass start event.

Frenchman Martin Fourcade won three golds, one with the mixed relay team and two individual golds as the most successful biathlete in PyeongChang. The most decorated female was German Laura Dahlmeier, who won two individual gold and another bronze medal, although Anaïs Bescond (FRA) and Anastasia Kuzmina (SVK) also won three medals, but only one gold each.

The most successful nation was Germany, with 3 golds and 7 medals overall, as Arnd Peiffer (a gold), Simon Schempp, and Benedikt Doll won individual medals, as did the German men’s relay team, with a bronze medal. Next was France, winning 3 golds and 5 medals, adding two bronze medals to Fourcade’s triumphs, by Bescond and the women’s relay team. A bit surprising was that Sweden’s men’s relay won only a single gold medal and Johannes Thingnes Bø won the only gold for Norway, although Norway won 6 biathlon medals. Slovakian Anastasia Kuzmina capped off her Olympic appearances with another gold medal and two more silvers after 2010 and 2014.

The best Russian biathletes were not invited by the IOC, following the doping scandal during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and Olympic Athletes from Russia did not win any medals in this sport.